


A Helping Hand

by AppalachianApologies



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Also kind of, Broken Bones, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Hurt Spencer Reid, I needed to write something other than the sideness in charcoal so i wrote the polar opposite, Injury, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mom Blake, Spencer Reid Whump, This was supposed to be a whumpy oneshot but it turned into fluff, kind of, so much fluff!!, which is fluffy mom blake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27648881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppalachianApologies/pseuds/AppalachianApologies
Summary: After a routine takedown, Spencer realizes that he might've gotten more hurt than he previously thought.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 214





	A Helping Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Tomorrow's Charcoal is kinda (read: very) sad, and I needed some fluff in my life lol. Also it's been like a month since I've written Mom Blake, which is far too long!
> 
> So please, enjoy this mild hurt, lots of fluff, oneshot! :D

The case itself was aggressively average. A white, male unsub was terrorizing brunette women as surrogates for his late mother. The perfect example for Profiling 101, and all of the BAU wonders why the local PD even needed them. It ended up taking only three days to find Isiah Willis, and during that time no other women were killed.

For the take down, Spencer, Blake, and JJ snuck around the back, as Hotch, Morgan, and Rossi went in through the front. All of them were confident that they would get Willis, even without the help of the other officers. 

Willis was dumb enough to open the door. As soon as he sees agents greeting him, he turns on his heels, running through his house to reach the back door, without the knowledge that there are three other agents waiting for him. 

He ends up running straight into Spencer, knocking him off his feet, both of them toppling to the ground. Quickly, Spencer’s able to get the upper hand, pressing his wrists together before cuffing them. Even the take down was aggressively average.

Spencer winces when he pulls the other man up, but doesn’t think much of it.

It’s only until he’s back in the precinct, filling out paperwork before the ride home, that Spencer thinks he might’ve actually gotten hurt. Holding the pen, Spencer scrunches his face when he feels something inside of his hand pinch. Looking down, he can already see a bit of swelling along the base of his thumb.

JJ pulls him out of his thoughts. “Spence, you alright?”

Flinching out of surprise, he quickly sets his hand in his lap and replies, “Yeah. Why?”

“You were spacing out for a second there,” JJ answers with a smile.

“Oh.”

“Done with your paperwork? Hotch says it’s wheels up in thirty.”

Nodding, Spencer replies, “Just a few more things. Have you already finished?”

“Yeah,” JJ grins. “I finished my paperwork before The Great Spencer Reid,”

Spencer grins back, but doesn’t withdraw his hand from underneath the table until she’s left. Forcing himself to ignore the pain, Spencer finishes his statement of the case. Unlike usual, it’s only a paragraph long, summarizing all of the details.

When Spencer pulls his messenger bag over his shoulder, he quietly groans. His thumb throbs with his heartbeat. Despite the security it provides, Spencer doesn’t hold onto the strap of his bag, but instead lets his arm hang limply to the side.

He stays quiet on the jet, but nobody really notices.

Silently, Blake sits by Spencer, pulling out a crossword puzzle from underneath her files. Unprompted, she asks, “Three down, ‘Avoid capture,’ eight letters.”

A beat later, Spencer answers. “Redeemer.” 

“Thanks,” 

Before she can continue, Spencer points out, “But you knew that already. Why’d you come over here?”

With raised eyebrows, Blake questions, “Why’re you so defensive about it?” Ignoring Spencer’s look, she continues, “You’re only defensive when you’re hiding something.”

“I’m not hiding anything,”

“Hm.” She hums, obviously not convinced. “In that case, seven letters, ‘Fashionable fabric in the Italian Renaissance,’ second letter R.”

Spencer can’t help himself when he answers, “Brocade.”

“Thanks,” They continue the quiet back and forth of crossword puzzle clues, and Spencer’s tight shoulders finally begin to relax. There’s something that feels so natural when it comes to Blake.

They quickly finish the puzzle, and without any other old newspapers, the rest of the flight back to Virginia is quiet. In the back of Spencer’s head, he can hear the scratch of Hotch’s pen, never once picking up from the files. With a frown, Spencer wonders if Hotch ever stops doing paperwork.

Morgan’s half asleep, headphones on, occasionally blinking awake to look at the rest of the team, as if to make sure that they haven’t disappeared. After sending a few texts, JJ falls asleep as well, easily passing the time by being unconscious. Similar to Hotch, Rossi’s writing, but rather than files, he’s taking notes. Despite the fact that Spencer can’t actually see what he’s writing, he assumes it's for his newest book.

Blake doesn’t leave her spot, even when the crossword is over, and Spencer doesn’t know whether to be grateful or annoyed. He thinks gratitude is probably the right answer.

When the jet finally lands, Spencer thinks that he should’ve been a bit suspicious at the fact that Blake offers to carry his gobag along with her own, but he doesn’t refuse. He’d much rather leave his right hand free if he’s at all able to. Quickly glancing down, he can see that his thumb continued to swell through the plane ride, but shoves it back in his pocket before anyone else can notice.

Strauss lets them all go home early, and in the blink of an eye, nearly all of the BAU members have taken advantage of that fact. JJ leaves to surprise Henry by picking him up from school, while Derek and Garcia leave to spend the rest of the day decompressing. After spending a few minutes in Hotch’s office, Rossi leaves the building, and the Unit Chief follows suit not soon after.

Suddenly, the only other member of the BAU besides Spencer is Blake.

“Do you want a ride home?” She asks, holding her car keys in one hand. 

Letting himself smile, Spencer answers, “Sure.”

They make a bit of small talk, and Spencer calms down a bit, keeping his hand hidden. He’ll ice when he gets home, maybe wrap up his hand if he needs to. But if there’s one thing Spencer knows for sure, it’s that the team doesn’t need to be bothered with this.

Right as Spencer reaches, with his left hand, to open the passenger door, Blake puts a hand on his shoulder. Turning his head, Spencer acknowledges, “Hm?”

“Can you do something for me before you leave?”

“Um. Sure?” Confusion rises in Spencer’s mind, wondering if he missed something.

Though the feeling goes away when Blake makes her request. “Show me your hand?”

“I don’t…” Spencer winces, wishing that he had the quick thinking skills that Hotch has. “What do you mean?”

“I saw it on the jet,” Blake answers. “And you’ve been hiding it away, holding it strange. You got hurt, didn’t you?”

Spencer looks at the dash, at the windshield, anywhere but Blake.

“Reid?”

“It’s not that hurt,” He tries.

Unfortunately, it’s the wrong thing to say, when Blake adds, “Well then it won’t be any trouble to show me. Right?”

“I don’t need to be babied,”

“I’m not babying you. I just want to make sure that you’re okay. I don’t like seeing you hurt,” She finishes, a frown coming to her face.

Unable to push through his guilt, Spencer obliges, pulling his right hand out of his pocket, keeping in a wince when the fabric runs across his thumb.

Blake hisses in sympathy. “This looks pretty bad,”

“It’s,” Spencer pauses, trying to find the right words. Eventually, he just settles on, “...really not.”

“You’ve done a great job convincing me,” Blake replies. “And that was sarcastic. You haven’t convinced me at all. This looks broken,”

Spencer sucks in a breath. “It doesn’t even hurt that bad,”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Spencer grumbles something, but it’s inaudible to Blake. “Look,” She bargains, “I’ll drive you to urgent care. If it turns out to just be bruised, then you can say ‘I told you so.’ If it turns out to be broken, then at least you’ll know, okay?”

“I don’t want it to be broken,”

“So you’re trying a Schrodinger's approach to your thumb? If you don’t get it x-rayed it’s both broken and not broken at the same time?”

Making a face, Spencer scrunches up his nose. “Well, when you say it like that,”

With a nod toward his seatbelt, Blake requests, “Buckle up. The nearest urgent care isn’t even that far away. You’ll be in and out before you know it.”

“Fine.” Spencer concedes, but not before putting his hand back in his pocket. The tension in the car has raised considerably since they left the BAU, making Spencer uncomfortable. He imagines that Blake feels the same way, but he’s never been able to read her that well. “Does Hotch know?”

When she reaches a red light, Blake looks over at Spencer. “Why would Hotch know?”

“I don’t know,”

“He doesn’t.” Blake answers. “But if it is broken, he’ll need to.”

“Yeah,” Spencer sighs. “This sucks.”

Nodding, Blake muses, “Part of the job, right?”

“I always seem to get hurt more than anyone else.”

With a smile, she responds, “That’s just your bad luck.”

“Do you have any superstitions?”

“No. Why? Did you break any mirrors?”

Spencer can’t help a smile coming to his face. “No, I’m just curious. My life seems to be full of bad luck, you know?”

With a sigh, Blake somberly agrees, “Yeah. I get it.”

There’s a beat of silence before Spencer changes topic. “Hey, Blake?”

“Yeah?”

“I think my thumb really is broken,” He admits.

“I know, Spencer. It was really swollen.”

All she gets is a sigh in response.

When they arrive at the urgent care, both of the agents leave their go-bags in the car, but Spencer still keeps his messenger bag on him. It’s a safety blanket to him, and he isn’t going to be giving that up any time soon.

At least, until he’s ushered into the x-ray room, and he’s forced to take it off.

Sadly, Spencer’s quite used to the routine of x-rays. He’s used to the different positions that they manipulate his hand to get a good picture, and he’s used to the lead vest they put over him. That’s his favorite part. The heavy lead vest feels wonderful.

Blake stays with him the entire time, rambling about anything and everything on her mind in order to keep Spencer distracted. He appreciates it more than he can voice. 

Eventually Spencer gets called back, and he brings Blake with him. Unsurprisingly, the doctor tells him that his thumb is broken. It’s at the base of his metacarpal bone, right next to the trapezium. It’s low enough that they want to put the entirety of his lower arm in a cast.

Spencer knows why, he understands how joints connect to the rest of his arm, and how moving his wrist would cause harm to his thumb, and how the lower part of his arm needs to be stabilized to keep his wrist still, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Spencer scowls at the floor, stopping his anger from being directed at an innocent doctor. 

While they wait for a cast (that’s what most of this trip to the doctor has been: waiting), before Blake sets her hand on his knee. “You okay?”

“Wish it wasn’t broken,” Spencer mumbles, not really answering her question.

“I wish it wasn’t broken either,” Blake admits. “But we can’t really do anything about it now. Other than just wait for it to heal, of course.”

Nodding, Spencer complains, “I won’t be able to do field work with a broken bone,”

“Just because you won’t be shooting at an unsub doesn’t mean that you’re not helping take them down.” Comes Blake’s quick response, as if she perfectly knew how to soothe Spencer’s anxieties.

“Hotch once told me that you don’t need a gun to kill someone,”

Blake raises her eyebrows. “He’s right,”

“Yeah,” Spencer replies with a frown. Blake waits for him to continue, but he doesn’t, instead just scratching the outside of his thigh with his good hand.

Luckily, it’s only a few more minutes until Spencer’s able to get casted.

Half way through the process, Spencer’s arm already feels itchy, and he absolutely dreads the fact that he’ll have this on for another six weeks. Spencer ends up settling on a dark blue for the outside color, even though he secretly wanted purple. He figures that the local PD barely take him seriously as it is, and a lavender colored cast wouldn’t help much.

Blake drives him home, glancing at him at every rightlight and stop sign. Spencer pretends that he doesn’t notice, even though they both know the truth.

Much to the younger agent’s surprise, Blake ends up walking Spencer up to his apartment. “Are you going to be okay?”

“‘S a small fracture, I’ll be fine,”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” Blake points out.

Looking down at his coffee maker, Spencer answers, “I’m fine. I’ll call Hotch later today. Or maybe just wait until tomorrow, I don’t want to bother him-”

“You wouldn’t be bothering him,”

“How do you know?”

With a small chuckle, Blake cryptically replies, “I just know. I’m sure he’d want to hear if you got hurt,”

Groaning, Spencer remembers, “No, I’ll have to tell him soon. Any field injuries need to be in the paperwork. Hopefully he hasn’t already turned them into Strauss, because if he has then-”

“It’s fine, Spencer,” Blake interrupts, successfully pulling him from his thoughts. “The paperwork should be the least of your worries right now.” With a grin, she adds, “Wouldn’t want to turn into Hotch, worrying about paperwork all day, now would you?”

Spencer can’t help but let a laugh escape. “I guess not.”

The conversation slows to a stop, before Blake awkwardly takes a breath and starts up, “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow? I hope your hand feels better-”

“Hey, Blake?”

“Yeah?”

Avoiding eye contact, Spencer acknowledges, “I have a few crosswords that I haven’t had the time to fill out. Want to time it and see if we can get a new personal best?”

Blake smiles. “I’ll start the timer.”

**Author's Note:**

> *chanting* MOM BLAKE MOM BLAKE MOM BLAKE
> 
> As always, you all mean the world to me, and I'd love to talk! If you're up for it, stop by my [tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/appalachianapologies) (AppalachianApologies)
> 
> I love you all very much, and I hope you all are doing okay. If you find yourself in a bad or scary situation, here are some hotlines (Please keep in mind that the written out numbers are US hotlines)
> 
> National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255  
> National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673  
> National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
> 
> If you don't live in America and need someone to talk to, here's a list of [international hotlines.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines)  
> You are not alone, and I love you all <3
> 
> Stay safe, and I'll see you all tomorrow for chapter nine of Charcoal!!


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